Chapter 7 - The Visitor in Federal Custody
The subterranean detention ward of the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown Chicago smelled of industrial floor wax, cold concrete, and bitter, rotting pride.
Julian Moretti sat on the edge of a stainless-steel cot bolted to the wall of his solitary cell, wearing an oversized orange institutional jumpsuit.
His styled hair had been buzzed down to the scalp; his expensive manicured vanity had been completely stripped away, his hands and ankles secured with heavy steel transport chains as he waited for his transfer to the federal penitentiary in Marion.
The heavy steel slider door buzzed open with a loud hydraulic clank.
Rocco Moretti walked into the cell.
I did not hurry. My leather dress boots clicked rhythmically against the concrete with a slow, deliberate cadence. I wore an elegant dark charcoal wool overcoat over my three-piece suit, my posture commanding, sovereign, and entirely unbothered.
Julian flinched back against the concrete wall, his bloodshot eyes widening in a mixture of feral hatred and visceral terror.
"You came to gloat, cousin," Julian spat, his voice cracking into a dry, hoarse rasp.
"I came to look at you, Julian," I said softly, stopping three paces from the cot. "I wanted to see what six months of stolen ambition looked like when the bespoke suit was finally stripped away."
"You were always our grandfather's favorite, Rocco!" Julian hissed, leaping to his feet, his transport chains rattling violently against the steel belt around his waist. "He gave you the docks, the shipping lines, the family name! I was the one who went to Harvard! I built the financial network that made this empire worth billions! I deserved fifty percent of those Calumet berths!"
"You didn't build an empire, Julian," I replied, my slate-gray eyes locking onto his with freezing clarity. "You forged a dead man's signature, sent armed thugs to rip a six-month-old infant's crib from a nursery, and left an honest woman to starve on a bare kitchen floor for fifty million pieces of silver in Grand Cayman. You believed that because Emma was seven years old, she was powerless. You believed that because Clara was quiet, she was forgotten."
I reached into my coat pocket, pulling out a copy of the morning's unsealed federal grand jury indictment.
I dropped the heavy document onto the steel cot.
"Julianna Sterling signed a full plea-allocution at sunrise, Julian," I said. "She detailed every offshore routing token, every forged signature proxy, and the fact that you ordered the crane sabotage that murdered Thomas Vance six months ago."
Julian’s breath hitched in his throat. He looked down at the forty-eight felony counts listed on the parchment, his hands shaking so violently that the paper fluttered against his knees.
"Julianna... confessed?" he whispered, his voice finally breaking into a pathetic, terrified whimper.
"Julianna saved herself, Julian," I answered quietly. "Just as you tried to save yourself at my dining table. The Julian Moretti assets have been completely liquidated by the federal receivership, and your legal defense trust has a balance of zero."
Julian collapsed onto the cot, burying his face in his cuffed hands, weeping with the raw, ugly agony of a man who had realized that his vanity had left him completely alone in the dark.
"Rocco... please," he sobbed through his fingers. "We share the same grandfather's blood... think of our childhood... tell Arthur to drop the capital murder counts..."
I looked at the broken man on the cot.
The cousin who had grown up in my grandfather’s house was gone forever, replaced by an empty shell whose cruelty had consumed his own soul.
"You ceased being my blood the night you left Thomas Vance's daughter to sell her bicycle in the rain, Julian," I whispered softly. "And now you can spend the rest of your life counting the days in the cold."
I turned my back on the broken conspirator.
May you like
"Guard," I called out.
The heavy steel door slid open, and I walked down the echoing corridor into the bright morning sunshine of Chicago, leaving Julian Moretti to weep in the concrete shadows where he would remain for thirty-five years.
